You can almost hear the collective groan every time a new technology, medium or platform lands in the laps of the journalism industry—or the “content” industries more broadly. From the inception of the internet until very recently the shift online felt, at least to the content creators being asked to populate all those web pages with actual stuff, like a parade of bosses always asking them to “do more with less.” Then came the iPhone and the iPad and suddenly journalists, editors, publishers and pundits were proclaiming instead of groaning (although there’s always some groaning).
To the growing body of evidence that the optimism around mobile is justified, we’re adding “Create, Curate, Channel,” a research paper commissioned by Ebyline that found editors—and the publishers, agencies and brands that employ them—increasingly turning away from the cheap, unoriginal content that worked when eyeballs could be begged, borrowed or stolen and toward high-quality, engaging stories and media that generate the once-and-future goals of writing and shooting: engagement, loyalty, buzz, conversation.
“Create, Curate, Channel” also includes some helpful tips and ideas for making the transition to a more mobile world in which creativity and flexibility matter in equal measures:
•How to manage audience conversations to maximize engagement and minimize inefficiency and priority conflicts.
•How mobile is changing the nature of content creation from a static process to a continuous one.
•Road map for creating an editorial “priority filter” to re-focus your group’s goals on long-term business drivers such as loyalty and engagement.
•Exclusive results from the Ebyline/Editor & Publisher survey of American editors covering how top publishing and marketing executives spend their time and energy.
For anyone in the content business who cares to know how and why what you see on your screens is changing, you can download a copy of “Create, Curate, Channel” here.